Rosalie Regina was born November 19, 1923, the third child of Eva and John Wilson, in Baltimore, MD.  Rosalie attended Sharon Baptist Church and was an honored graduate of Frederick Douglas High School in 1944.  She earned a certificate of nursing from Freedman’s Hospital School of Nursing,(Washington, D.C.) in 1946, where she assisted the prominent Doctor Charles Drew during surgical procedures.

Rosalie met Sinclair Washington at a U.S.O. service center in 1943. They were married in 1945 after Sinclair returned from World War II. In 1946 they migrated to Philadelphia where their first daughter Kaffy Margaret was born in 1947.  In 1950 they bought a home on Elder Avenue in Yeadon, PA, and two years later their second daughter, Eve Darcel, was born.

Rosalie worked as a registered nurse at Children’s Hospital (18th & Bainbridge Sts.) where she specialized with C. Everett Coop’s (Surgeon General), patients.  In 1959, she became a school nurse for the School District of Philadelphia and earned a Bachelor’s Degree of Science in Education, from West Chester State College, in 1963.  In 1981, Rosalie graduated from Cheyney State College, Summa Cum Laude, with a Master’s Degree in Administration, delivering the graduating address.

In 1971, she chartered and became President of The Philadelphia Public School Nurses Association, which became the first union of registered nurses in the United States, in 1972; Local 3383, AFT AFL CIO.  She remained president of this union (350 nurses) unopposed for 14 years, until she retired in 1986. She also was a member of the Philadelphia Public School Retired Employees Association from 1986 to 2007.  She gave health seminars and substituted occasionally until 2008.  

Rosalie was preceded in death by her husband Sinclair (1988), and her daughter Kaffy (2003). She is survived by one daughter, Eve, two sisters Geraldine and Joan, two brothers-in-law, one son-in-law, three grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and a host of other relatives and friends. She will be dearly missed by all.